Increasing prosperity, Reducing poverty
>> Monday, April 14, 2014
PUNCHLINE
Ike
Señeres
I agree with the goal of some international organizations to
“reduce poverty and share prosperity”, except that I think we should make it a
goal to increase prosperity first, before we could share it. Besides that, I
think that the sequence should be reversed, meaning that we should increase
prosperity first, because by doing that, we would also be decreasing or
reducing poverty.
It would really be a big
disappointment if after so many years, we would succeed in reducing poverty,
and yet there would be no prosperity to share. Our present situation seems to
be the reverse of this condition, because we are supposed to have economic
prosperity now as government figures would show, and yet this prosperity has
not been shared with the poor masses, and that seems to be the reason why
poverty has not yet been reduced. No less than Cardinal Luis Tagle has noted
this paradox.
The truth is that the twin goals
of increasing prosperity and reducing poverty could be done simultaneously,
because they would actually complement each other, as a matter of fact, running
parallel to each other. Indeed, it would be a contradiction to have a country
that is prosperous at the macroeconomic level, and yet the broader masses would
still be poor at the microeconomic level. As a side note, I should say that the
economic theory of having a “trickling down effect” has already been debunked.
Before moving any further, allow
me to flashback to my favorite pet peeve, and I am referring to government
officials who until now could not tell the difference between poverty reduction
and poverty alleviation. Since I have explained this dichotomy so many times
already, I will just say instead that the lack of understanding the difference
between these two is the root cause of not having clear cut and clearly defined
poverty reduction targets.
One thing for sure, the United
Nations has a very clear poverty reduction target, and that is to cut poverty
by half by 2015, as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). What is
alarming is that the government is already sending out fillers that it may not
be able to meet this goal. That is already bad news to hear as it is, but what
is even worse is that the government has not given a time frame as to when the
goal of cutting the poverty by half would be achieved. The fact is, it appears
that there are no figures coming out as to when and how the 50% reduction
target would me met at all.
The Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE) says that there are many available jobs, but many workers
could not be hired because of mismatches between their skills and the skills
needed by the employers. This is perhaps their way of explaining why
unemployment figures are high, a factor that contributes to low Per Capita
Incomes (PCIs). By consequence, it seems that it would also follow that if
unemployment is high, the Gross National Product (GNP) would also be low,
because of low productivity.
Poverty reduction is not the only
national problem that we are facing. Along with that, we are also facing the
problems of global warming, climate change, ASEAN integration and WTO
globalization. Just as some government officials could not tell the difference
between poverty reduction and poverty alleviation, some of these officials
could not seem to understand that global warming is one of the causes of
climate change, and in fact there is a direct connection between these two.
There is also a direct connection between ASEAN integration and WTO
globalization, the former being apparently a subset of the latter.
ASEAN integration is a two bladed
sword, a two-way street so to speak. It is a game that we could win if we play
it right, but we could also lose the game if we do not play it right. For
example, we could win in the agricultural sector if we produce the right
products to export, but we could lose if we end up importing most of our food
needs instead, assuming that what our ASEAN neighbors would produce would be
better and cheaper than what we would produce.
Agriculture has been a risky
business long before global warming and climate change came along, but it is
even riskier now, more than ever. On this note, I would add that climate change
adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) are two seemingly separate
concerns that should be addressed as one, especially so that both of these have
a direct connection to agricultural productivity. I wonder what agency in the
government could bring these two concerns together.
Aiming to increase prosperity and
to reduce poverty at the same time is like wanting to take one step backwards
and two steps forwards. That is so, because if we only take one step forwards
after taking one step backwards, we would only end up in the same spot where we
first started, without making any progress. Since we are already behind in
terms of our poverty reduction targets, we should actually take four steps
forwards after taking one step backwards.
Aiming to build more
farm-to-market roads sounds like a good goal at the outset, but that would only
make sense if we would first make it a primary goal to increase agricultural
productivity. What good would more roads do if we would not have more produce
to transport? In the first place, we must first strategize what crops we should
produce, with the highly competitive ASEAN integration in mind.
Food security also sounds like a
good goal at the outset, but what good would that be if our people would have
food only to eat and survive, without a surplus to sell so that we could also
prosper beyond our ability to survive? How could we answer all of these
questions very quickly?
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